Editors comment – The world is changing – or is it?

Indeed, the playing fields are levelling at such a rate, that economists now talk about the ‘flattened globe’ and ‘Flat Earth Economics’. There is even a best-selling book on globalisation called ‘The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century’, by Thomas Friedman who apparently describes himself as a ‘compassionate flatist.’

Which makes you wonder about 1492 – as the song goes “They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round.” And they were right.

But before we all rush off to join the Flat Earth Society, remember it is a different picture in the micro-world of global insurance programmes.

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The world can often still seem a very big, diverse, and disparate place when trying to deal with laws and regulations in dozens of territories worldwide.

It is true that some markets have opened up, and deregulated and liberalised and put out the welcome mat.

But even in these markets, rules and regulations are still thick on the ground waiting to trip up the unsuspecting risk manager.

In emerging markets, there is some improvement, and in some areas, it is becoming easier, but not easy, to incorporate these territories into a global programme.

But there are still many restrictions.

As this month’s International Programme News shows, there is some progress in markets such as China, India and Russia. But it is slow in coming and still leaves an awful lot of headaches.

And in mature, supposedly open, markets, there are still changes which have to be noted: the introduction of IPT, or IPT increases, VAT increases, new transfer pricing rules, not to mention regulators taking a harder line on compliance.

Global programmes are never easy, they aren’t meant to be, and probably never will be.

The world is not flat, nor is it shrinking. It is simply becoming a tiny bit flatter, very, very slowly.

Tony Dowding,

Editor-IPN,

[email protected]

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